The Style Council

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

The Style Council was an English pop group that came into being in Woking at the end of 1982. Paul Weller started it shortly after the end of The Jam, together with the keyboard player Mick Talbot. He wanted to escape the straitjacket of the rock band and to explore pop, soul and hip hop. The group deliberately remained a loose association, with guest singers and later permanent members such as the drummer Steve White and the singer Dee C. Lee. In 1983 four separate singles followed that each sounded different: Speak Like a Child, Money-Go-Round, Long Hot Summer and A Solid Bond in Your Heart, all in the British top twenty. They appeared on the mini-album Introducing The Style Council.

Music and breakthrough

In 1984 the debut album Café Bleu came out, with jazz, soul, pop and funk mixed together, which divided critics and confused fans. My Ever Changing Moods became a hit, in the United States too. With Our Favourite Shop in 1985 the group reached its peak in Britain. The album went straight to the top of the chart, with influences from Latin music, jazz and funk and mostly political lyrics, as in Walls Come Tumbling Down! and Come to Milton Keynes. That year the band played at Live Aid.

Influence

After that it went downhill. The Cost of Loving in 1987 opted for R&B and its successor Confessions of a Pop Group no longer reached the top ten. The album Modernism: A New Decade, with influences from house music, was something Polydor did not want to release, and it only appeared in 1998. In 1989 Weller and Talbot split up. The group also supported political causes, such as the Council Collective with the single Soul Deep for striking miners, and was active in Red Wedge.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1983Introducing The Style Council
• 1984Café Bleu
• 1984My Ever Changing Moods
• 1985Our Favourite Shop
• 1987The Cost of Loving
• 1988Confessions of a Pop Group
• 1998Modernism: A New Decade